Whistleblower Denies Ebbers Knew
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Defence lawyers in the WorldCom fraud trial have pressed on, trying to demolish the government's case. In particular, they sought to undermine the testimony of the stellar prosecution witness, Scott Sullivan, former CFO. First up was Bert Roberts, former Chairman of WorldCom. He recounted a conversation he had with Sullivan in June 2002. At the time, the fraud was beginning to be exposed. "I asked Scott if Bernie knew, and Scotts answer to me was that Bernie did not know of the journal entries." This directly contradicted the gist of Sullivans testimony last week. Mr Ebbers denies the charges against him. Mr Sullivan, has already pleaded guilty to the charges. Another defence witness, Cynthia Cooper backed up the defence case. The former internal auditor had been one of the main whistleblowers when the scandal broke. The irregularities she found, related to billions of dollars in expenses were recorded in the accounts. Effectively hiding massive losses. At a meeting in June 2002, Cooper testified, that Sullivan said "I want to make it clear that this is my idea, and I take full responsibility for it." Additionally, Sullivan repeatedly thwarted her progress to unravelling "a spider web of transactions." This included asking to delay an internal audit.
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